Gloria Steinem, one of the most prominent figures of the US women's liberation movement, has died aged 92 at her home in New York City. Her foundation said she "passed away peacefully", surrounded by loved ones, adding that "she continued working for equality until the very end". Newly released details from her foundation paint a fuller picture of her final years, describing how she hosted "Talking Circles" for guests at her home and had committed to turning it into a hub for social justice movements, alongside a forthcoming memoir, An Unexpected Life.

Steinem's activism was shaped by a difficult, itinerant childhood in Toledo, Ohio, and a formative spell in India in the late 1950s, where she helped village women organise non-violent protests. After moving to New York, she made her name with an undercover exposé of Playboy Bunny working conditions before becoming a columnist and, in 1972, co-founding Ms. magazine. She also co-founded the Women's Action Alliance and campaigned on abortion rights, equal pay, same-sex marriage and against the death penalty and female genital mutilation, having herself obtained an illegal abortion in London at 22 — and later lived to see both the 1973 Roe v Wade ruling and its 2022 reversal.